Perspectives & News

You are here

In the News

In 1961, the Nobel Prize-winning co-inventor of the transistor, William Shockley, and his colleague, Hans Quisser, identified the theoretical maximum conversion efficiency of a solar cell. They called this the “detailed balance limit,” because maximum efficiency would occur when photons absorbed...

The growth rate of tropical trees relates to their capacity for carbon capture. South American forests are likely to capture carbon and produce wood half as fast again as their counterparts in Asia, but the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon remain unclear. Banin et al. compared the rates of...

Psychologists have known for years that people’s assessments of the risks of climate change are strongly influenced by intense local weather and short-term temperature variability. A new study by Zaval and colleagues identifies the psychological processes that underlie such skewed assessments which...

A new study by Neil Pederson and four co-authors presents a 1,112-year tree-ring-based self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index (scPDSI) reconstruction for the Central Mongolian warm-season, using 107 living and dead Siberian pines growing on the Khorga lava flow. The reconstruction...

In the provocative new book “Supply Shock,” ecological economist Brian Czech argues that perpetual economic growth is a doomed policy and that the world must transition to a steady state economy to curb over-exploitation of natural resources and climate change.
Climate change is driven by...

A presumed benefit of global warming is the assumption that warmer winter temperatures might decrease excessive winter deaths (EWDs) common in temperate climates. EWDs are defined as the difference between the number of deaths in a region during winter months (December – March) and the average of...